Illinois Glass Co. 1920 Catalog

Bottle Typing/Diagnostic Shapes

1920 Illinois Glass Co. Bottle Catalog
HOME: Bottle Typing/Diagnostic Shapes: 1920 I.G.Co. Bottle Catalog

One of the best sources for determining bottle types based on the shape are old glass/bottle makers catalogs. An assortment of catalogs have been used in the preparation of this website to assist with bottle dating, and in particular, bottle typing - i.e., what a bottle likely contained or was used for. A very few bottle makers catalog were reproduced in the 1960s and 1970s, but all are long out of print and variably difficult to obtain. However, there is no better source for determining potential use and period shape names than these old catalogs.

Because of this utility I have reproduced the entire 1920 Illinois Glass Company (IGCo.) "General Catalog A" on this website; a catalog never reproduced to the authors knowledge. It is not dated but contains information that indicates that it was printed no earlier than 1919 (it lists the new carboy plant which was finished in January 1919) and no later than mid-1920 as this catalog does not list the Bridgeton factory (ex-Cumberland Glass Co.) which was acquired April 13th, 1920 (Lockhart unpublished manuscript 2006). The IGCo. was one of the largest producers of bottles during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and still is in its current manifestation as the Owens-Illinois, Inc.©) having almost certainly the most comprehensive array of offerings of any bottle maker at the time within all important bottle type categories. Given this dominance, the bottle styles listed in their catalogs - and to a large degree the style names used - are typical of the offerings of most bottle makers of that time making the IGCo. catalogs one of the more important catalogs of the era to researchers.

This catalog is significant as it is the first of the IGCo. catalogs to feature essentially all machine-made utilitarian bottles (pages 10 to 116) although many of the "specialty bottles" (e.g., perfumes, shop furniture/shelf ware) shown on pages 137 to 169 were largely still being hand blown it is believed. The majority of the machine-made bottles were produced by the Owens Automatic Bottle Machines - the first fully automatic bottle machines - although some of the wide-mouth utilitarian bottles and jars were being made by fully automated press-and-blow machines (Miller & McNichol 2002; empirical observations). The catalog shows the company offering some of the earlier finish styles that are only observed on machine-made bottles, e.g. Kork-N-Seal, Phoenix, Goldy, Sure-Seal and others.

The catalog is copied in its entirety and includes many pages of related non-bottle items, e.g., packing materials, corks and corking machines, various bottle filling machines and much more. Fascinating information all! This particular catalog was used by a firm in Durango, Mexico as it was date stamped upon receipt (?) on September 23, 1922. Of not, it contains many pages of liquor bottles which would have had a very limited market in the U. S. at the time due to National Prohibition. It appears that new editions of IGCo. catalogs were issued every 3 to 6 years during the first three decades of the 20th century; the next (and probably last) catalog known to the author is the "General Catalog B" which was first issued in 1926. (A complete copy of that 1926 catalog is also found on this website!) The IGCo. merged with the Owens Bottle Co. in 1929 to form the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. For a complete history of the Illinois Glass Company consult the following reference; a pdf copy of this article is included on this website:

Lockhart, Bill, Pete Schulz, Beau Schriever, Bill Lindsey, and Carol Serr with contributions from Russ Hoenig and David Whitten. 2016p. Illinois Glass Company. Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website, E-published August 2016. Article on probably the largest bottle maker during the last third of the 19th through the first quarter of the 20th century. This updated article is available at this link: http://www.sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/IGCo.pdf This article is part of the Encyclopedia of Manufacturers Marks on Glass Containers. This article also has an appendix of soda bottle mold/catalog codes used from 1896 to 1920. It is available at this link: Appendix A - Illinois Glass Co. Catalog Codes (Mold Numbers) for Soda Bottles 1896-1920.

For more information on the products of the Illinois Glass Company, see the other two catalogs reproduced fully on this website - the 1906 IGCo. catalog and the 1926 IGCo. catalog.

All of the pages in the 1920 IGCo. catalog are hyperlinked below in the order they appear in the catalog. Click on each link to view an enlarged and moderate quality scan of each individual page (jpeg files). Each link consists of the catalog page number and the general subject matter of that page - as appropriate or useful. Various functional category "breaks" are made in the list below for easier use; it is still in chronological page order but various types are scattered to some extent through the catalog.

If a user wishes to search for a particular bottle type (or other catalog listing) in the catalogs "General Classified Index," these pages are linked immediately below. Determine the page number of the item you are interested in then find that page link further down this page and click on it. Just be aware that some of the proprietary names that the company (and all bottle making companies) used are not always intuitively clear as to what type of bottle it is referring to:

Page 3 - Acid Bottles to Crown Capper
Page 4 - Crown Ovals to Mailing Cases
Page 5 - Main Factory to St. Louis Brandy
Page 6 - St. Louis Mustard to Wood Top Corks

After viewing an enlarged scan, use the back arrow on your browser to return to this page. Unfortunately, a user can not move from one page scan to the next without returning to this page.

SEARCHING THIS WEBSITE:
To do a word/phrase or image search of this website one must use the following Google search link:
Search the SHA/BLM Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website
(Note: Search results for this website will be just below the final top-of-the-page Google paid ads.)

1/1/2024

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Bill Lindsey
Bureau of Land Management (retired) - Klamath Falls, Oregon
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